Here is What Yellowbook told me.

Not only is that stat wrong, it isn't even possible.

Hmmmm..... I wonder why it is then that most major companies and brands still advertise in the yellow pages. Many even still use newspapers, magazines, TV, and OMG ... radio!

Consider this...

Mobile web is 3 times bigger than the www - and growing at a phenomenal rate.

How many people carry a phonebook with them?

How many carry their mobile device or phone with them?

YP is full of ____.

I have seen the BIA/Kelsey report and it does show 97% as stated above by another poster.

Regards,

John

The study is only available to clients of BIA/Kelsey. Here are some call outs from their summary:

and

I would not be one to tell a business owner that their yellow page advertising is out or dying. In some demographics, particularly the 35+ crowd, it is still a viable media, and just as in other offline marketing media there are appealing marketing criteria that cannot be matched totally online with exclusivity. For example, there are still many highly visible brand name companies in the yellow pages, and you're just going to make yourself look like an idiot by showing prospects the BIA/Kelsey study as a lead in.

Instead, sell them YOUR promotional services without denigrating other methods. Smart small business owners are thinking: “How many ways can I buy a new customer relationship?” They dollar-cost-average customer aquisition costs, and structure their businesses to make the economics work. Loser thinking is: “What is the cheapest way I can buy a customer?”

Let your client make the decision what advertising media he should drop. If you go in lambasting his yellow page advertising which may have been working in his market, you are going to be the one that is dropped.

I gotta agree with this. My mother is probably more internet savvy than the average senior, but when she's looking for a business, she uses the local paper or the yellow pages. I have talked to her about using Google, but she swears by the yellow book. She also has a smartphone and it doesn't even occur to her to use her it to search for a business. I think it has something to with the small font. Something to keep in my as the population ages (at least in the US).

And it's not just seniors...a lot of people don't have computers and they prefer it that way.

It is good to see people having positive success with their marketing...no one can ever complain about that

I will point out...that those folks who found him in the YP.. they all have mailboxes too...only ...they all go to their mailbox every day... like clockwork.

Thats every household, every business...every day. 100% exposure available any day of the year at unlimited intervals all under your measured control.

I confidently submit that he would have made an additional 500K a year had he put most of that money in direct mail. Yes, ten times his revenue easy.

In other words his Yellowpages ads cost him $450,000.

The kind of money people are throwing at the YP can buy massive amounts of direct mail. Tons more active exposure. ...and by active I mean....it goes and puts itself right in front of their eyeballs anytime you tell it too, and will tell them anything you need it too. It gives you the power of consistent pursuasion, education and recognition. The power to create a customer where one wouldnt have developed on their own, in that same span of time.

I don't need to explain to another marketer how that is a decidedly monumental advantage

For me the YP continues to be a goldmine of leads...and I'll milk it till it dies

When I'm finally in good with a client, when they see results, and they trust what I'm doing for them, their YP expenditure drops in a big way. That money goes into a mix of other more aggressive avenues.

I think that trend will continue as more marketers move in to help businesses harness the power of other mediums.

I have ads there too. Shh.......

They are far from dead and they are not dying....

The print aspect has seen a little bump.... but the YellowBook360 campaigns took it's place...

So when a new business calls that doesn't know any better. The yellow page guys sell, well.... Give them a free website.... a Google Maps Listing tutorial... and sell the SEO and PPC management offering a free ad in the Print Yellow Book based on the amount of money they spend on SEO.

They also sell television advertising and direct mail.

They have become a full service marketing agency trading on their name.

Kudos to them for doing it....

My response to clients......

Do you want to be a name... or do you want to be a number?

Not to long ago, me and my REALLY good friend, who is a Sales Manager for YellowBook were at this get together.... It came out that I do internet marketing, she started asking me questions and I looked at him... "I got this one"

She asked if that's what he did too... He tried to jump in... so I used the line above... Name? or Number?

He laughed and walked away...

The question is though....at what point does it become counterproductive cost wise to make your ad bigger and bigger just to establish credibility? These full or double page ads are $1000+ $1400 a month....and nearly always those same guys have 3 or 4 more smaller graphic ads sitting in other categories, taking their cost well above $2000 monthly. There are a number of mediums where that money will produce better results. I know the IM guys could mop the floor with the YP on that kind of monthly budget. So could the TV guys, and maybe even the newspaper guys.

I'm a direct mail guy..say my client is spending $650 each month sending out 2500 postcards. (30K per year) He uses them for educational purposes to establish authority and trust and to keep his name on peoples minds...and of course jaw dropping offers to motivate the fence riders. At 1/2% to 1.5% response he'll be pulling 150 to 450 customers by years end.

Now...if your marketing budget is tight...what sense does it make to spend another $650 to $1000 a month "just in case" so we can catch those other 12 people a year.

Here is the important part..."Exponential Revenue Over Time" if a Yellow Pages ad is bringing in 12-25 new customers a year....and each of those customers referrs 1 or 2 more during the year, turning to 75 new customers.

If the direct mail brings in 150-450...that turns into 1300+ ...in a town of 24,000 households...which method is on pace to capture the majority market share quicker? yeah, not the yellow pages.

An argument could be made then..that the $1000 ad in the yellow pages is a whole lot costlier than the amount on the YP invoice.

If I'm a local brick and mortar business why on earth do I want people looking for me in the YP? Every time someone goes looking for me they get introduced to all my competitors...if they didn't know what their options were before, they do now. The YP is the last place I want my prospects going to look for me. If people have to find you in the YP it means you didn't do a good job of branding.

If I've done a good job getting my brand all around town using multiple marketing venues...Direct mail, aggressive referral, web, mobile, email, newsletters, testimonial displays, TV & Radio...Then peolpe will already know who they are gonna call....they won't even need to open the yellow book.

...and all of that can be done over the course of a year for the same cost of having one big fat ad in the YP.

IM'ers and all marketers alike...once you've established a good working relationship with your client...and you want to create more budget for your line of expertise....you'll find it in their YP expenses. Reduce it and redirect it into your vehicle.

Anna, yes they are there are numerous companies that provide Yellow Page books ... Yellow Pages, Dex, Yellowbook. There are multiple ones in each city especially in larger metro locations... which is why you often are 'given' so many copies throughout the year.



I personally like using the Yellowpages especially when I see dentists or other professions with multiple huge ads with targeted keywords in their YP ads that don't show up for online rankings or are on page 2 etc. lol

Their stats are WAY juiced in their favor.

Amazingly... the amount of misinformation is astronomical. The Mass Media guys (television and radio) use Nielsen Ratings. Yellow book uses someone else... I asked... are you the parent company for that ratings company?

Did not get a straight answer....

Why don't you use Nielsen Ratings?

Did not get a straight answer.....

They can because of a technicality. The 42% of people who use the phonebook, (notice that phonebook is not necessarily the YellowPages) and the 6% who use the Yellow Pages ( and really that isn't impressive at all considering that nearly 100% of local populations have these books in their posession) ...anyway....

So..your a shop owner who has all this marketing going on...you've got your trucks all covered with your brand name, you've got some TV spots going...some Radio, Newspaper ads....and some decent strength going for you in word of mouth...overall your name and brand are fairly recognized maybe. So when people go looking for you they may already have an idea who they want.

but when the "study" comes along and asks "How did you find this company?" ..."Oh...well...I looked it up in the YellowPages"

The YP counts that and takes credit for it...even tho he was just using it to look up the phone number.

This has been my experience as well... Same with just about everyone I know in the service industry. Before opening my Media Consultant business, I owned a service business that provided in home services to high end residential clients.

The phone book was the most ineffective form of advertising I could do. When I did get calls... they were price shoppers. My USP be was superior service, not price. So it was a waste of $1200 per month for an average of 5 phone calls per month that only one would lead to a new client.

Which is exactly what there are doing....

YellowBook is in negotiations now... To either be purchased by Microsoft or Google.


Why? Becuase of the nationwide sales force. That's it... nothing else.

I thnk ssome of you are missing the point of YP advertising. For every business owner who still places his trust in YP being his main marketing source, that same guys is one of those people who gets his info from the YP.

The fact is, there may be a place in a total marketing campaign for web, print, billboards, radio and even YP. The wider the net the bigger the catch. The trick, and the real value added service we can offer, is where to allocate the marketing dollars for best effect.

Like most of you, I'm on the Internet all freakin day long, but I still listen to the radio and it still gets me to pick up the phone from an ad about once a month.

I actually got into an argument with a really good friend over this....

I basically broke down to him why YellowBook SUCKS...

If you have more than one chiropractor in each city as a client... Who do you work harder for?

You advertise being a "Partner with Google" but all you have to do is manage $10,000 in ad spend for 90 days... then take a couple of tests on compliance. So how do you honestly look a client in the eye and say that is your USP?
(Unique Selling Proposition)

WTF...

All across the world livings have been made destroying yellowpage / yellowbook's lack of marketing skills... How are you going to tell your client that you can get them results knowing that you are selling virtual brochures?

How do you sell using the numbers you use?

They are bull****... for decades every Mass Media Company has been using Nielsen's Ratings... Now that you have your own rating company that goes completely against what has been proven by principle for decades, How do you sell that?

By the time I was done... we almost went to blows.....

He called me a couple of days later... and apologized.